Doomsday Preppers Stockpile The Weirdest Things; Here’s 3 Of Them…

If you are reading this article, chance are that you are a doomsday prepper or going to begin your journey into one.

One of the key essentials for any doomsday prepper is stockpiling resources in preparation for the day when SHTF. Of course it goes without saying that the normal item that a doomsday prepper stockpile first is food. But did you know that there are some really weird things that you might not even imagine having any decent use in the event of SHTF.

But if you dig deep enough (you are a doomsday prepper right?), you’ll begin to see and understand why some of these items can give any prepper that advantage to survive the dire situation.

Doomsday Preppers Stockpile The Weirdest Things; Here’s 3 Of Them

Modern-day survivalists aren’t generally regarded as the most sane people on the planet. A quick look at any one of the disturbingly common and frighteningly thorough shopping lists they post online drives home the fact that anyone who self-identifies as a “prepper” most likely went off the deep end a long time ago. Sure, it’s fine to keep a few extra cans of food and cases of water around for an emergency, but if you start adding body armor and butt paste to your stash, you might want to tell George Miller that it’s time to see other people.

However, a closer look at these lists reveals some of the weirder things they suggest you hoard aren’t as crazy as you think.

#1. Non-Lubricated Condoms

Survivalists come in all shapes and sizes, including a subset that appears to believe that birthing a large army is an important step in securing their rightful place in the barren wastelands of tomorrow.

However, a few unintentional similarities to the Quiverfull movement doesn’t mean that preppers can’t still care about safe sex. Hunting, canning, and digging your own latrines does nothing to make the threat of an STD less real. After all, gonorrhea and genital warts are going to be a whole lot harder to treat without reliable access to medical care. And there must be at least a few survivalists out there rational enough not to want to endure the horrors of premodern pregnancy and birth unless absolutely necessary.

Probably not a lot, but a few.

Why It’s Not So Crazy

Actually, the real reason non-lubricated condoms are such a hot commodity has very little to do with protecting your nethers from disease and baby seeds and way more to do with surviving actual life-or-death scenarios. Sorry to get all those visions of doomsday prepper sex dancing in your head for no reason.

The survivalist hard-on (yep, and I’ll do it again, too) for prophylactics untouched by chemical pleasure-enhancers is the result of drilling deep (told you) into the magical properties of our latex friends. According to our research, these flexible, durable, waterproof wonders will be as much of a deciding factor in your dystopian longevity as fire and can openers.

Here are just a few choice gems from The Prepper Journal’s 11 Ways A Condom Can Save Your Life: starting fires (they’re great at protecting tinder from moisture), hunting for food (sexiest slingshot ever!), and transporting up to two liters of water (yes, rule 34 applies; no, we won’t provide the link). They also make serviceable stand-ins for rubber gloves and can be used to protect the muzzle of your other essential survival tool (killing it right now).

As if that weren’t useful enough, that list also doubles as a gaslighting manual for when your monogamous, pill-protected significant other inevitably questions you about your stash.

#2. Dog

If I Am Legend, Dog Stars, The Flame In The Flood, and other media are to be believed, canine companions will be staples in our post-apocalyptic lifestyles. Dog preppers are no strangers to this mentality, providing a wealth of guides for picking the appropriate pooch for your “survival team.”

But should we really base our future survival strategies on these works of fiction just because lovable pups tug at our heartstrings? It’s much more likely that dogs will be a drain on human resources in the apocalypse. Or they’ll eat us.Or they’ll infect us with rabies, a plague all too common and frightening in developing countries like Bali, even without the added complications of a global catastrophe.

I certainly don’t want to have to deal with packs of free-roaming, rabies-laden beasts in addition to nuclear fallout and food shortages. Even if they do have cute booties and adorable little backpacks.

Why It’s Not So Crazy

Hate to break it to you, but your dog probably has a better chance of making it through a total societal collapse than you do. A quick Internet search of “dog survives” lists everything from drowning to being shot, from bear attacks to war — whereas the closest you’ve ever come to “surviving disaster” is getting your wisdom teeth pulled, and even then it was only with the help of a cadre of trained medical professionals and a carton of the strongest painkillers on Earth.

Before they were pets, dogs were workers. They can carry their own supplies without complaint (already making them superior to most humans right now), sniff out food and water, and search for and bring down prey. Some breeds, such as huskies, have been specifically tailored to bust their butts on the barest of rations.

Dogs also have a long and storied history of offensive and defensive combat use, making them perfectly suited to attack anyone who thinks they have more of a right to that sweet, sweet snack cake stockpile than you do. Which is to say, your four-legged pal is just a few training sessions and a kickass set of armor away from leading you to your rightful place as God Of The Ragged Desert/Water People.

#3. Booze

People who carefully and painstakingly prepare for mass extinction don’t exactly seem like the type of people who plan great parties. At least, with those vast collections of guns, ammo, and other terrifying armaments, I certainly hope not. Then again, I suppose everyone will need a drink or 10 to get through the inevitable horrors of forever navigating the “what’s for dinner” question without Seamless or, you know, realizing that your urban-dwelling family members will probably never arise from the blasted pit of rubble where their apartments once stood.However, if some tales of survivalist stockpiling are to be believed, our nutty neighbors have enough of the social lubricant squirreled away to hold the most epic end-of-the-world-party of all time outside of Edgar Wright’s social circle. It might not be practical, but who needs practical when you and everyone you know is doomed to die from radiation poisoning or cancer?

Why It’s Not So CrazyWhile it’s a given that at least some of it will be consumed in the name of keeping the proverbial party going, there are a lot more important reasons that alcohol is going to be nearly essential to living after modern conveniences have sunk deep under the world-spanning deserts and dust clouds that will inevitably plague our future.

The stories of alcoholic beverages historically being safer to drink than unfermented ones are apocryphal at best; however, as any 17th-century sailor would tell you, the addition of some spirits to potable water that’s been sitting around for too long will make it much more palatable. Liquor distillation was originally invented in part for medical purposes, and alcohol can be used as a solvent to dissolve medicinal herbs — and also to knock out patients during good old-fashioned fallout-shelter surgery. High-proof alcohol can be used as an antiseptic, and it does a great job of cleaning wounds and preventing infection.

The uses for alcohol in a survival context aren’t limited to things that benefit your health. If your hooch is high enough proof, you can light it on fire.Thus instantly bypassing the tedious fire-starting methods you learned as a scout and wowing nearby members of your preferred gender with enough time left over for a much-needed scrub down before the snuggles commence.

And, of course, people aren’t going to stop wanting to get drunk just because they can’t pop over to the corner bodega for a six pack whenever the urge strikes. Portability and long shelf-life make liquor of all types a valuable trade good — people will kill to get a taste of the delicious bottom-shelf leftovers from your local dive bar when their only other option is the equivalent of prison wine.